In Detail

Service Oriented Architecture is generating a buzz across the whole IT industry. Propelled by standards-based technologies like XML, Web Services, and SOAP, SOA is quickly moving from pilot projects to mainstream applications critical to business operations. One of the key standards accelerating the adoption of SOA is Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL).

BPEL was created to enable effective composition of web services in a service-oriented environment. In the past two years, BPEL has become the most significant standard to elevate the visibility of SOA from IT to business level. BPEL is not only commoditizing the integration market, but it is also offering organizations a whole new level of agility ability to rapidly change applications in response to the changing business landscape. BPEL enables organizations to automate their business processes by orchestrating services within and across the firewall. It forces organizations to think in terms of services. Existing functionality is exposed as services. New applications are composed using services. Communication with external vendors and partners is through services. Services are reused across different applications. Services are, or should be, everywhere!

This book is not just another generic set of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) best practices with only general recommendations and advice: instead it's a unique cookbook that shows you how SOA applications are built using best practices that are proven in 10 real-world scenarios.

The book consists of three sections. The first two sections will inspire you. They showcase real-life projects on BPEL-based integration and development of composite applications. You'll see that SOA is a reality today, learn what successful implementations are like, and how SOA can work for you right now. It will encourage you to take a plunge into the world of services and test-drive SOA yourself. If you are already in the middle of an SOA implementation, these sections will offer you fresh insight into your current approach, help you to deal with specific business challenges, and make sure what you do is in line with the best practice.

The third section will equip you with BPEL techniques to build better SOA applications. These techniques represent the practical implementation of best practice, with code snippets ranging from development to administration of an SOA application. They are generic enough to be applied in any of your existing projects yet specific enough to enable you reap the full benefits from your SOA implementation.

"EDS is making use of BPEL as part of our Agile Enterprise Strategy. We use it internally and as part of our solution that we provide to our clients.

The real-life experiences in this book are an excellent way for you to understand how Service Oriented Architecture can work for you right now"- J.R. Jesson, CTO, EDS Application Portfolio Development

"BPEL has emerged as the leading industry standard for Web services orchestration and coordination of business processes. This book offers a unique opportunity to learn from ten of the most advanced adopters of BPEL.

Listen to how your peers drive value from building composite services and putting them into business processes."- Stephen D. Hendrick, Group Vice President, Application Development and Deployment Research, IDCar

Who this book is for

This book is aimed at architects and developers building applications in Service Oriented Architecture. The book presumes knowledge of BPEL, SOA, XML, web services, and multi-tier architectures.

Book Editors

Markus ZirnMarkus Zirn is a Senior Director of Product Management for Oracle Fusion Middleware. In this role he heads the Strategic Customer Program, where he works with Oracle's leading and most innovative middleware customers. He has been part of the Enterprise Software industry for more than 10 years, including roles as Vice President of Product Marketing and part of the founding team of QUIQ and as a Management Consultant of Booz Allen & Hamilton's Silicon Valley High Tech Practice. Markus' passion for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and BPEL stems both from practical experience designing and optimizing business processes as part of process reengineering projects and from being part of the advent of "software as a service" before web services became mainstream. He holds a Masters of Electrical Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe and is an alumnus of the Tripartite program, a joint European degree from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, the University of Southampton, UK, and ESIEE, France.

Harish GaurHarish Gaur has more than 10 years of experience in the enterprise software industry. He is currently the Group Product Manager for Fusion Middleware at Oracle. In his current role, he works closely with strategic customers implementing Service-Oriented Architecture using Oracle SOA technology. Harish's expertise in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) draws from an extensive hands-on experience with Business Process Management (BPM) and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI).

Before Oracle, he worked as a Solution Specialist with Vitria Technology educating customers about the benefits of Business Process Management. Prior to that, he helped Fortune 500 companies architect scalable integration solutions using EAI tools like webMethods and CrossWorlds (now IBM). Harish holds an engineering degree in Computer Science and is an MBA from Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. He lives in Fremont, CA with his wife Swati and son Agastya.